On 8/06/2000, Christopher Lott at lott@stockmaster.com wrote:
>
> What is the autoposting FAQ server? Please do tell! I've been
> maintaining an account with an ISP that isn't so awfully great
> just
> because they have good news connectivity. If I could get away
> from
> that I'd be pretty happy.
>
> chris...
Chris -
After your FAQ headers have been approved you can send the FAQ and/or any multi-part FAQs to the *.answers server to be auto posted.
Send an e-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
the command "send usenet/news.answers/news-answers/guidelines"
(without the quotes) in its body.
That should offer the FAQ file on how-to. I took the above right from the FAQ itself.
In general you set up your FAQ(s) within the body of an e-mail with the approved primary header lines at the top, a blank line, secondary header lines, blank line, then the FAQ text itself. You then send it to a specific address and the subject line of the e-mail itself is used to convey the commands to tell the server what to do.
It will read specific lines within the headers to determine certain things. Others you can do with subsequent mail messages to the server by e-mail.
If your FAQ posts every month, its "clock" is set for 30 days from committing it to the server. Over time that can drift from the first of each month but its not recommended that everyone post then as it can tax the system. I let mine drift and just tell people within the FAQ that it posts within the first 10 days of a month. Other frequencies can also be specified. Every year or so I reset the FAQ's posting timer by forcing a posting manually which always resets the timer.
Once on the server you can add, update, post manually and a few other wigets.
And faqs.org picks them up there in plain text and html'izes them for posting out at faqs.org. Its not glitzy or contain images but its very functional and saved me a lot of hassles.
Dealing with the server can take a little getting used to but once on it I think you will like it. Its especially good for those whose news programs do not allow you to create certain necessary header lines, which is most news programs today. Those with limited news agent knowledge, or on systems like a Mac will find the FAQ server the god-send they were looking for.
So I have a text version archived at rtfm.mit.edu, and that is propagated out to other archives and in html to faqs.org. I just sit back and let the systems do the work they were programmed to do.
DMK
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